How would you feel about your young family members, children, brothers or sisters being forced out of school to work? Child labour is a big problem that is happening as we speak, although not all work completed by children should not be classified as child labour. Child labour is where children are "deprived from their childhood". Imagine, you could of had been much less fortunate during childhood and instead of playing with friends and getting an education you might of had to work day in day out making products for little money. Many companies use child labour to produce products, they get away with it because some countries have much less employee protection and children don't have to have an education. Primark
This is a recent company that has been caught out from using child labour to produce clothes, Primark have been able to sell clothing products at a ludicrously cheap price. there is one main reason to this, this is because child labour was used to make products. A Panorama report showed a young Tamil girl sewing buttons onto clothes for Primark's new secret possessions range, It is thought that the shop resorted to child labour in sweat shops because it was impossible to match the time and price that Indian competitors were able to get clothes in for. Below is a video regarding the story.
This is a big issue with international trading because companies believe they can get away with this, however because it is illegal in our country they get found out. Companies exploit the rules and regulations in other countries to get their products at a cheaper cost, shown in the video, this is an ethical problem. The workers know it is wrong and don't agree with it however they have no choice because they need their money to survive, In my opinion child labour needs to stop and is not acceptable from any companies especially companies with such large profits like Primark.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/23/primark.children
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgJh79xFzxU&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgJh79xFzxU&feature=player_embedded
Nike
This is another large well known company that has been reported for using child labour to produce products such as footballs. Nike often assure customers that they complete regular factory checks to ensure that no products are being made unethically however when the BBC program Panorama investigated this further they found it to be different. When the program visited the factory in Cambodia they spoke to over 5 workers and the general working conditions were 7 days a week with days up to 16 hours long, this is not right for children of the age of 12.
Pictured is a young boy of 12, he is stitching Nike footballs. He is one of the thousands of child workers in Pakistan that produce over 5 million footballs a year, research has been made and he earns 60 cent a ball and one ball takes him most of the day to produce think about this compared to the amount UK workers earn from a full days work.
International trading is cheaper that trading within your own country so this is why Nike have chosen to have factories outside the US, however international trading is cheap enough due to the cost of material etc. so why is it that they feel the need to make it even cheaper by employing children to produce products even cheaper. This is greed from large companies because they know this will increase their profits.
Links to other stories or information
Apple
Adidas
Football manufacturing
http://www.hurights.or.jp/archives/focus/section2/2001/09/child-labor-and-indias-football-making-industry.html
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